Robert Stein (1950)

Robert Stein (1972)

Robert Stein (2000s)

About Me

editor, publisher, media critic and journalism teacher,
is a former Chairman of the American Society of Magazine Editors, and author of “Media Power: Who Is Shaping Your Picture of the World?” Before the war in Iraq, he wrote in The New York Times: “I see a generation gap in the debate over going to war in Iraq. Those of us who fought in World War II know there was no instant or easy glory in being part of 'The Greatest Generation,' just as we knew in the 1990s that stock-market booms don’t last forever.
We don’t have all the answers, but we want to spare our children and grandchildren from being slaughtered by politicians with a video-game mentality."
This is not meant to extol geezer wisdom but suggest that, even in our age of 24/7 hot flashes, something can be said for perspective.
The Web is a wide space for spreading news, but it can also be a deep well of collective memory to help us understand today’s world. In olden days, tribes kept village elders around to remind them with which foot to begin the ritual dance. Start the music.

Wednesday, January 09, 2013

Silver Bullets for Gun Control

It takes a split second and pennies to end a life but
hours of surgery and months of rehab, often hundreds of thousands of dollars to
save someone struck by a bullet.

Gabrielle Giffords, living proof of this lopsided
human cost accounting, visited Newtown this week with her husband former
astronaut Mark Kelly to rally support for efforts to prevent future gun
violence

In a USA Today OpEd,
they write, “We don’t want to take away your guns any more than we want to give
up the two guns we have locked in a safe at home. What we do want is what the
majority of NRA members and other Americans want: responsible changes in our
laws to require responsible gun ownership and reduce gun violence.”

Such a sad outlook recalls a proposal by the late Sen.Pat Moynihan two decades ago. The scholarly sociologist suggested that, since
the nation is flooded with guns that will “last forever,” lawmakers
concentrate on bullets instead.

“We have only a three-year supply of ammunition,” he
observed, proposing a tax, not on bullets for hunting or target shooting, but those
designed to penetrate armor and cause unspeakable damage to human bodies.